Thursday, October 6, 2011

My husband P is a writer by trade, and he told me once that he thinks Winnie the Pooh was one of his greatest influences. Given that the nature of his writing ranges from the stock market, to Canadian politics to education reform and beyond, Pooh is not always very obvious.

That said, when A was born (20 years ago!), P wrote a bath song for him. It goes a little something like this:

Baby in the bathcausing quite a splashdee deedle dee dee-dee *Baby in the bath.

I don't know about you, but I think that has Pooh all over it.

Eventually, the babies get to the point where all they have to hear is "Baby in the bath..." and they'll take off in the other direction, squealing to get away.

After dinner we initiate the baby bath routine. I say "Okay, Baby. Time to take a bath." F follows me down the hallway as quickly as she can (her legs are only about a foot long) and occasionally gets distracted by the dog or a previously abandoned toy or a sudden thought.

Usually that thought is "Keeeee?" which means "Where's the kitty?" or "WheDa?" accompanied by the sign for Daddy.

Once it has been established that the Kitties are downstairs and the Daddy is in the office, the journey down the long hallway to the bathroom resumes.

In the bathroom, I dangle F over the cd player and she very painstakingly uses her tiny little forefinger to press PLAY. On comes Tchaikovsky's Greatest Hits at a volume of about 1000000 decibels, loud enough to be heard pretty much everywhere in the house. That's how we like our classical music around here, especially when it comes to the 1812 Overture.

F dances with a sort of swaying, squatting motion and conducts the music while I draw the bath water and get her diaper, lotion and pajamas situated. Then, I chase her around for a minute, threatening to "get" her, and then get her undressed. That's when the fun begins.

Perched on the side of the tub, naked, Felicity throws in her rubber duckies one at a time, and we count them as they splash.

At thirteen the last duck is in, and F follows them into the water. I give her a quick soap and rinse, and then she generally plays until she's all tuckered out.

There are many joys in bathing an adorable baby, from their squeezy little bodies to the little fat hand splashes, to the way their hair plasters down their foreheads, but I have to say this is one of the cutest so far:

The Discovery of the Belly Button

It was a big day.

What's
that beautiful wall decor, you ask? Oh, it's just a mural my Mom painted for me. She's just
the most talented and generous Mom ever. No big deal.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Mom, don't get excited. I just made some money, that's all*. "Making paper" is like "rolling in the dough" in that the reality involved no wood pulp and no dough.

THREE DOLLARS!!!

That's right. Three buckaroonies. Wanna know how?

I went to Goodwill and bought their cutest baby clothes for $.99. Then, I went to Once Upon A Child and sold them for more than that. I sold four articles of clothing for $7.

I'M RICH!

Some of the clothes I took in were rejected because they're summery or they need to be washed. Don't you worry, though. I'm going to introduce the washing machine and an old paper bag storage solution to this little scam. We're gonna keep this baby rolling. In the dough.

*We recycled our own paper one time when I was homeschooled. It was awesome, except that my Mom tried to be all artsy and put dried leaves and flowers in the paper and my little sister felt this was crimping her style which was really more Lisa Frank oriented, and she flounced off in a huff.

About Me

I'm a twenty-something stepmother to two older kids, I have two babies and a darling husband. I love to cook, work at fundraising, try to garden and fail to juggle it all most of the time. I'm in the process of making a lovely home despite the daily trials of, well, dailyness. We have two cats, a dog and a courtyard garden.